Gettin Past the Grand Place

Been to the Grand Place? Seen the little boy peeing in one of his outrageous and ridiculous costumes? Gorged on waffles spilling over with fruits and chocolate and whipped cream? Such debauchery!

With more time in Brussels to uncover the ruinous cobble-stones, why don't we take a wee little exploration into the communes that surround the centre and discover some dining and drinking gems that even the locals frequent.

Ixelles is an excellent place to start - it's bustling with student life and is an expat hub too. Take a stroll around the ponds, eat the best frites in Brussels (arguably Frit Flagey), watch life go by in the main square and then settle in for some scrumptious dining and beer tasting.

Flagey Square:

On Saturday mornings Flagey Square hosts a small but lively market where you can find tasty deli treats like olives and sundried tomatoes, spices, Turkish sweets and other specialities.

The first floor of the tall radio building across the street from Flagey Square is the well-known Cafe Belga. This spacious, bright room is a favourite for students after a coffee and light snack or an afternoon beer, and watch out because the terrace fills quickly on a warm evening. http://www.cafebelga.be/

Delecta was once a grocery store in the 1950’s. Now, this cafe is one of the trendiest places in Brussels in spite of its original decor. It also serves up some top quality nosh. Try the delicious Portuguese sweets on display or a heavenly tartine for lunch. At night you can order tapas from the blackboard menu and the staff will recommend a decent bottle of vino. Rue Lannoy 2, 1050 Ixelles


Mamma Roma now has three locations. It’s a small pizzeria not two minutes from the Square where you can purchase pizza by the slice and weight. Indulgent toppings are the name of the game here and the token favourite is potato with truffles. Add your own chilli flakes and olive oil to taste while eating at one of the wooden bars - if you are lucky enough to get a seat that is. 5, Chaussée de Vleurgat

For nights filled with Jazz and a place to chat with friends over sublime cocktails and antipasti head to Bar du Marché. It’s simple and stylish black and white decor may fool you by day, but don’t miss the long happy hours on Friday and Saturday nights where this small little bar spills into the street. http://www.bardumarche.be/

Le Murmure is tucked away only a few doors down from BDM. It is an artsy dive-bar with paper sketches tacked to the walls and an interesting set of “chandeliers” made out of copper-pipes. Often-times, there are art exhibitions and concerts, but usually you will find a bubbly place to talk amongst friends. It’s a favourite with the art students from across the road.

For a decent cup of coffee head to the Natural Caffe to sip on an Illy espresso or cappuccino with silky steamed milk. The large glass windows are framed with plenty of stools and provide fantastic people-watching opportunities. Alternatively, you can chit-chat with friends over a pot of mint tea at a large table in the middle of the room. Close by is The Coffee Club with its bright and cosy terrace in the back to escape from the noise and fumes of a busy main street. http://www.naturalcaffe.com/

Ixelles Cimetière:

The stomping ground of ULB students has some fantastic “haunts” to whittle the night away at any of the numerous cafes, bar and restaurants.


Waff is a bar with the energy of a nightclub. Late at night there will be table-top dancing, many a cocktails been drinkin’ and a lot of fun to be had. The decor is understated, modern and simple and there is also the obligatory foosball (baby-foot) table for the competitive sportsmen. Also there is a wicked terrace upstairs for the summer months. A couple doors down is Urban Cafe which has really cheap and long happy hours, DJ sets through the week and the occasional exhibition or concert. http://www.waff.be/

Once you haul open the large, heavy door and enter L’Atelier (The Workshop) the choice is yours in over 200 beers listed on the blackboard above the bar. At most times this bar is smoky, popular, crowded and noisy. That is not a deterrent. Join in as students chant their frat songs loudly and proudly, guzzle down gallons of leffe and converse freely and openly about anything and everything. There are also board games and cards available if that’s what gets you revved up for a big night on the turps. Rue des Chevaliers 4

Le Tavernier has a fantastic garden terrace in the front to relax and chill in good weather. Inside, there is a jovial student atmosphere, lounge space, long wooden tables to pile into with your friends and chat over jugs of cocktails or beers. The staff is friendly and laid-back. Watch out for the grungy uni-sex toilets! http://www.le-tavernier.be/

Discovering the past in Spiennes - Neolithic Flint Mines

http://www.scribd.com/doc/32473492/026-029-Spiennes-Plus - for full PDF file of Article

(Clippings from my full article published in Ackroyd Publications' WAB magazine) 

It’s Sunday afternoon and I have just jumped off the bus to Spiennes. I walk through the sleepy village looking out for the occasional, confusing signpost to point me in the right direction. The only human activity I see is a man walking his dog. Crossing a bridge over the small stream of the River Trouille I find simple farm land set in quaint, peaceful countryside. Bright yellow wildflowers dot the meadows where fat cows laze and horses graze.

Upon walking up a quiet one-lane road there is no sign or welcoming board at my destination. In fact, I feel quite lost. All I can see is a few parked cars in front of a derelict portable toilet (the extent of the WC facilities) and an abandoned shed erected from sheets of corrugated iron overgrown with weeds and shrubbery in a state of neglect.

I’m at the Neolithic flint mines of Spiennes, a UNESCO world heritage listed site that dates back 6,000 years.  The site’s tourism is as primitive as the mines themselves. Fortunately, Jean-Louis Dubois (Vice-President of the Société de Recherche Préhistorique en Hainaut – SRPH ) had sent me all the information I needed to get to the site.

Walking onwards, I hear a few murmurs and laughter through the bushes and follow the sounds to the entrance of the site – a shabby fence once again overgrown. People wearing safety harnesses are grouped underneath the roof of a small makeshift shack of corrugated iron. A wooden shelf on the back wall acts as the museum display, with a modest collection of Neolithic tools consisting of a polished stone axe, core blades, antler picks and a few hand-drawn diagrams.

It’s the very opposite of the flashy tourism package you might expect from a World Heritage Site. The entrance to the mine shaft looks like a well. A ladder protrudes from within. Visitors in single file are hooked up by the harness to a lengthy rope and then descend the long, rusty ladder eight metres into the dark pit.

Jean-Pierre Joris greets me in French. He has been at the mines since 1953 and began the first excavations and tours on the site. He is also the president of the SRPH. He summons Michel Woodbury, a photographer-cum-archaeologist employed by the Walloon region for more than 10 years, to begin the English tour with me.

Reaching the bottom of the abyss, I’m in complete darkness while my eyes adjust. Light from the shaft entrance casts down and bounces off the white chalk walls. Michel explains that this is how the Neolithic miners worked, relying on the reflective capabilities of the chalk. Fire would have used up their precious oxygen.

Michel reconstructs life in Neolithic times, when whole oak forests were removed with their polished stone axes to practise agricultural activities. These technologies that took millennia to cross from the Middle East into Europe substantially increased the standards of living. Despite the wealth in trade and culture, times were still hard and the shafts were sometimes used as graves. A skeleton of a young girl and her newborn baby was found, and suggests the pair did not make it through the birth.

Michel turns the artificial lights on, revealing an incredibly complex network of horizontal galleries and shafts. He explains that the mines are an “engineering genius” and were over-exploited for 2,000 years.  The miners excavated the flint stone with red-deer antlers for picks (sharp and durable) and recycled the waste chalk by stabilising the foundation beneath them with it.  It created beautiful archways and pillars that, Michel muses, they never saw.

http://minesdespiennes.org/en.html